Sunday, September 23, 2012

If you expect to have journalistic credibility on public education . . .

these non-traditional public schools, funded with state taxpayer’s dollars, have had an uneven record of success. Some have failed miserably and deserved the intervention of the state Department ofEducationto close them down.

. . . while writing this, two paragraphs later:

the public school establishment in general has much to fear about a growing trend of new charter schools, due to their record of greaterstudentachievement with less resources in terms of building capital and teacher pay.

So which is it, News Journal? Did you count the students in the schools that failed, or does their failure somehow take them off the books, leaving on the students at the schools that have so far succeeded?

Or, unbelievably, has the entire editorial board missed the prolonged and nuanced discussion on blogs around the state that have challenged this precise assertion, that charter schools inherently do better with less resources than public schools.

May in the Gannett era of outsourcing, Voices for Delaware Education was subcontracted to write this editorial.

Don't misunderstand me: I am a charter school parent, and an advocate for educational choice. But I also deal in data rather than platitudes, and on that level this superficiality on the part of the State's supposed newspaper of record--especially in counterpoint to some of the excellent reporting Nichole Dobo has done--is not just disappointing, it's depressing.